Advice for buying my first dedi server?

UberTiger

UberTiger

UberTiger

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1 Nov 2008
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I'm looking into buying a dedicated server to host a few sites I'm looking to launch shortly.

I'm currently on a cheap VPS and my host doesn't do dedicated servers.

Any advice on good companies to go with?

I think I'll need a manged one as I'm not too comfortable using SSH yet or how to go about troubleshooting server issues.

Another thing to bear in mind is that there will be multiple forums on the server and I need to make sure that I have an SMTP server on it set up correctly, or use an external provider. I've read that the RDNS needs to mach the domain account sending the email in order for it to not be flagged by as spam?

To do this will I need multiple IP addresses? One for each domain?
 
Thanks for the replies guys :)

I've been shopping around a bit and I'm not sure I do really need to go for a full dedi at this point in time, especially looking at the cost of some of the dedis with Vida and TSO. £300-£600 :-o

Their VPS' are pretty expensive.

Vidahost.com VDS £90 +£30 Setup fee
4 Virtual Xeon CPUs
3GB Ram
80GB Space
1600GB transfer

TSOHost.com VDS £100 +£30 setup cPanel Free
4 Virtual Xeon CPUs
3GB Ram
80GB Space
1600GB transfer



My current VPS is actually really cheap (granted no where near as powerful as the above) :p


Mini VPS VPS £10 Single core
1GB RAM
1 IP
40GB Space
400GB Bandwidth

I'd even contemplate a dedi from OVH, who are apparently pretty big but based in France. Seems like a lot of hardware for the price. No management though.

OVH Dedi £65 No Setup Fee
i5-2400 Quad 3.1
16GB RAM
2 x 2TB Sata2
100Mbps

30 Day free trial



Now, I'll probably get slated here for suggesting it - but what about 1&1? I've just looked at their Dynamic Cloud Server package, which is currently 50% off and the discount stays with you for the life of the contract. So if I need to upgrade or downgrade the price doesn't change.

I can get considerably more RAM for the price, which will help with database focused forum sites wouldn't it?


1&1 Dynamic Cloud
£48
4 Cores
4GB RAM
200GB Space

£66
4 Cores
8GB RAM
200GB Space

It would also mean that I could drop the requirements for quiet periods, and when I anticipate a busy period I can jack up the number of cores to 6 and RAM to 24 GB. That would work out at a maximum of £138 per month when I need the extra juice.

This could be a good compromise on flexibility considering this is a new business project I'm launching and I don't really know how busy the sites will be?
 
Last edited:
It's really hard to say.....It will be 3 or 4 forums running XenForo

But I will be doing a very heavy marketing push for a two week period at the end of this month for launch. If the marketing goes well and lots of users visit the sites on certain days during those two weeks, I don't want to to risk it not being available or the users getting a poor experience and therefore poor first impression.

That's what's making me think the cloud solution could be good. I can crank up the requirements for that 2 week period to ensure everything runs smoothly, then cut back on the resources once things settle down and I get a better feel for how many returning visitors the site may experience in the following couple of months.
 
I just though it seemed expensive relatively speaking compared to the cost of some dedicated servers that I'd seen for less.

But you're right, I really shouldn't be worrying about amounts like that. It's just that I feel a little swamped by some of the server side stuff when I should be focusing on getting a few other parts of the business worked on.

I'm trying to do a lot on my own here and some of it's pretty new territory. The uncertainty of knowing if anyone will use the sites is making me be more cautious than I should be about spending cash or getting locked into any contracts...I guess I've just gotta go for it and hope for the best! :)
 
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